{"id":96661,"date":"2025-07-19T05:00:45","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T09:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=96661"},"modified":"2025-07-18T18:26:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T22:26:52","slug":"no-issue-is-so-important-that-we-cant-have-a-proper-debate-on-the-merits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/07\/19\/no-issue-is-so-important-that-we-cant-have-a-proper-debate-on-the-merits\/","title":{"rendered":"No issue is so important that we can’t have a proper debate on the merits"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Substack, Lorenzo Warby<\/a> refutes the claim that some issues are just too important\/too urgent\/already decided:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the features of the “progressive” politics of the unaccountable classes<\/a> \u2014 those who are just paid for turning up \u2014 is the demand that there be “No Debate” about various issues. The most obvious instances are “No Debate” about Trans<\/a> and “No Debate” about climate change \u2014 hence demands that climate scepticism be outlawed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All such “No Debate” claims are crap. First, any “No Debate” claim is presumptive evidence that what you are pushing is either not true or, slightly more subtly, is a mountain of bullshit<\/a> erected on a molehill of truth. Robust cases for claims about the world are not afraid of debate.<\/p>\n

Various moral urgency claims are mounted to support such “No Debate” claims. How do we determine moral urgency? From the evidence. If the evidence is clear, debate will not threaten that alleged urgency. On the contrary, it will reveal the urgency more clearly.<\/p>\n

The underlying philosophical<\/em> dynamic underlying “No Debate” claims is Critical Constructivism<\/a> \u2014 the claim that reality is socially constructed; that all statements and knowledge claims are, in fact power claims; and that the righteousness of a claim can be determined by their (alleged) effects on (morally differentiated) social groups.<\/p>\n

The underlying social<\/em> dynamic is the use of affirmed beliefs to determine and display righteousness. If affirming X shows one to be one of the righteous, then not believing X shows one to be of the unrighteous. This is typically expressed in various terms of moral abuse (racist<\/em>, Transphobe<\/em>, Islamophobe<\/em>, etc) whose use in media and academe has soared since 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is not because Western societies have become more bigoted \u2014 on any reasonable measure they have become far less so over time \u2014 but because the politics of Righteous Affirmed Belief has dramatically surged<\/a> and so has therefore the stigmatisation of dissent.<\/p>\n

To claim that affirming X shows ultimate moral propriety requires stigmatising not-X. For something is morally proper \u2014 indeed morally trumping \u2014 only if the opposite is morally improper. Thus is moral propriety is enforced by stigmatisation. Hence silence is violence<\/em> \u2014 one must profess righteousness. Hence also words are violence<\/em> \u2014 if affirmation of belief is the ultimate marker of righteousness then expressed disbelief becomes the ultimate marker of abusive malevolence. These dynamics lead to a great deal of preference falsification<\/a> \u2014 people publicly affirming, or at least not opposing, claims that they do not privately believe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Substack, Lorenzo Warby refutes the claim that some issues are just too important\/too urgent\/already decided: One of the features of the “progressive” politics of the unaccountable classes \u2014 those who are just paid for turning up \u2014 is the demand that there be “No Debate” about various issues. The most obvious instances are “No […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,28,53],"tags":[459,245,1380,766,254,1020],"class_list":["post-96661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-media","category-politics","tag-censorship","tag-climatechange","tag-criticaltheory","tag-democracy","tag-gender","tag-progressives"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-p93","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96663,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96661\/revisions\/96663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}